HUD Dedicates Funding to Fight Housing Discrimination

Last week HUD announced that it is making $38 million available to fight housing discrimination through the agency’s Fair Housing Initiatives Program (FHIP). The grants will be offered through three FHIP notices to support a variety of fair housing activities, including fair housing testing in the rental and sales markets, public education efforts, capacity building, education and outreach. Each year, HUD provides funding to support organizations that enforce and educate around fair housing law and policies. This focus on fair housing is important because of the “egregious historical forms of housing discrimination, such as racially restrictive covenants and overt racist attitudes, [that] have largely given way to other intractable obstacles that negatively impact African American homeownership,” said Mel Watt, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. HUD must receive all applications for the grants by September 18, 2017.